


Fire

by lol-phan-af (lol_phan_af)



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Canon Era, F/M, Fire, M/M, figurative fire tho like it's not real fire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 11:44:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6983584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lol_phan_af/pseuds/lol-phan-af
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alexander has never been one to calm down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fire

Alex had never been one to calm down.  
  
Growing up, he would always get into arguments with the other kids. It wasn't his fault that the other children who lived near him had an endless supply of taunts and insults that they would rapid fire at him at any given moment. It's not his fault that they would run to their parents after he had said something back to try and defend himself.  
  
His mother saw the fire in him, told him it would make him brilliant someday if he only used it right. She was the one person who could subdue the flames by adding more fire to them.  
  
Then she died, and the fire burned hotter than the fever he was suffering from.  
  
His brother was very simple, unlike his mother and unlike Alexander. Alexander thought that maybe James was like his father, who he remembered but didn't find many things to attach to his brother. James didn't understand that fire burning in Alexander's chest nor did he ever try to. Alexander needed someone to be there to calm him down, and his bother was not it.  
  
It's ironic, Alexander thinks, that a hurricane is what causes his flame to burn brighter than it had ever before. The words burn on the page like they'll leave scorch marks. The words sear themselves into people's minds, and it allows him to get away from the island that had done more harm to him than good.  
  
When Alex gets to New York City, he's astounded. He wants to memorize every street and every house. He wants to know all of the people that reside in every corner of the whole vicinity.  
  
The fire inside of him is going to set this whole city ablaze, and he will be there to watch it burn.  
  
The burning is a constant now, unable to be restricted by anyone he meets.  
  
Hercules and Lafayette were snide, clever, and seemed to have a hypersexuality that Alexander wasn't exactly ready for. He trusts them enough to tell them about the fire, about his need to seize every opportunity with a frenzied passion. One that cannot be stopped. Hercules had told him that maybe he needed a woman to help 'put out his flames'. Alexander had laughed, shrugged his shoulders because you can't deny that that might be a suitable solution. John had laughed, too, but it wasn't the same thing. His was stiff, heavy, like he wanted to say something but he was having trouble finding the words.  
  
It doesn't take Alexander a lot of time to figure out what John was trying to say to him. It's not because John tells him, but because John shows him.  
  
John has his own fire, his own indescribable flame that burns so bright and fierce that Alexander is sometimes afraid. It shows for the first time when he asks his father for his help in creating a battalion composed of slaves, and is granted his wish but the plan is postponed until further notice. He shows Alexander exactly how he feels by shoving everything off of his desk, face red, chest heaving. Alexander calms him down, holding his face with one hand and the other coming to rest on his neck. John looks at him, the flames burning out to a smolder as they look at Alex.  
  
They could burn the whole camp down that night.  
  
From then on, they become each other's fire. They ignite and extinguish each other, creating a dynamic that could bring the very country they are trying to liberate to nothing but ash and smoke.  
  
When he meets Eliza, she becomes John's equal in her immunity to the way Alex burns. The two of them coexist in Alexander's life until he can no longer burn if he does not have them both.  
  
When they do liberate the country, the fires they're burning are not ones to be smothered. Everyone was burning a fire that day and nobody was ever going to go out.  
  
When Philip is born, Alex does not see a fire, only light. He sees the sunshine in his son's eyes, and for the first time in years he can't find the fire in him.  
  
Then, his fire is burnt out. Smothered into nothing and leaving himself nothing but a charred shell of who he used to be.  
  
His fire is burnt out when he gets a letter from Henry Laurens detailing the death of his son.  
  
Eliza can see it die out. She can pinpoint the exact moment where the flames that charge her husband's entire being smoke out to nothing. That's when she decides to take a figurative match and set herself on fire. When she finds that she feels the same way she's felt a million times before, she smiles and supposes that she's been burning this whole time. It's this burn that allows her to singlehandedly pull Alexander back into the inferno that she created herself. He accepts this gratefully, allowing himself to be pulled into the fire that engulfs him.   
  
For the rest of his life, Alexander burns.  
  
He burns when his first daughter is born, and for a moment he's afraid of what this means, until he realizes that it's a kindling fire, one that wraps around his heart and squeezes. This, he thinks, he can live with.   
  
Oh and does he burn when Jefferson and Madison take it upon themselves to try and shoot him down every chance they get.  
  
Maria Reynolds causes a spark in him, but the spark never grows into anything resembling a fire.  
  
He doesn't burn when James Reynolds blackmails him for sleeping with his wife. He's mellowed out by the fear of loosing the one person that can contain him if he fails to meet Reynolds' demands. If James Reynolds decides to run to Eliza and break her heart in his greedy hands, Alexander will be an unstoppable force. That's dangerous not only for him but everyone he has ever loved.   
  
Ten years later, he is again mellowed my fear.  
  
His fire is trampled out of existence when Alexander publishes the Reynolds Pamphlet, effectively and inevitably crushing Eliza in the process.   
  
Philip looks into his father's eyes later that year and tells him about the duel he's scheduled with a fire in his eyes. The very same fire that both of his parents have, passed down to the next generation. Alexander steps back, tells him to avoid this fight. He tells him not to give into this fire and the way it burns, because once you start a fire it's hard to put it out.  
  
Apparently, for Philip, fires can be extinguished easily. All you have to do is get shot and then die in your parents' arms.  
  
Alexander never burns in quite the same way. It's a steady smoldering kind of burn, but even then he expects it to last longer than it does.  
  
Alex decides to meet Burr on the field in New Jersey.  
  
The whole world feels a lot colder the next day.

**Author's Note:**

> burn/burns/burning is said 22 times in this what the fkcu


End file.
